The Fact Checker

February 15, 2025
An endearingly obsessive fact-checker stumbles around New York in search of truth, meaning, and a woman. From theNew Yorker's iconic headline font to what certainly seem to be the real processes of the magazine's operation, Kelley's mostly charming debut is steeped in the lore of his former employer. As it opens, the unnamed narrator has received an assignment to fact-check a story known as "Mandeville/Green"--the name of the article's author plus a one-word "slug" to indicate the topic, in this case the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan: "That's Greenmarket, one word, capitalized. It's a trade name used by the Council on the Environment of New York City, a nonprofit that founded the city's farmers markets in 1976. That's the kind of thing I check first." Kelley gets often hilarious mileage out of this type of minutiae; in one memorable scene, the entire office falls silent to listen to a very senior member of the department fact-check a piece on 50 Cent. "'F-u-c-k-a?' we heard him say. 'Is that correct? Motherfucka?' He pronounced the end 'aah' like a child is supposed to when the doctor is looking down his throat." Our hero gets in over his head while trying to verify a reference to "nefarious practices" at the farmer's market, during which he meets an intriguing tomato grower named Sylvia, who becomes an obscure object of desire in and of herself. Most of this novel is wonderful, but there are a few serious caveats. One, there's an early giveaway of the outcome of one of the narrator's central quests, which dilutes its interest for the reader. Two, there is a disgusting and totally uncalled-for scene of gore, sure to turn off readers of the vegetarian persuasion. Somehow, after that nightmarish interlude, nothing seems as funny, and the close is a bit of a fizzle. This comic novel opens brilliantly but goes a mite awry by the end. Still, a bravura debut.

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March 1, 2025

DEBUT The protagonist of Kelley's debut is the Fact Checker, who works for a magazine in New York City in 2004 and is obsessive about checking facts for every story he is given. He is assigned to a story about the New Egypt farm in Southern New Jersey, which supplies trendy Ramapo tomatoes to the farmer's market at Union Square in Manhattan. A comment in the story from a farm worker named Sylvia about nefarious activities at the farmer's market causes him to visit the market to interview her in person. They meet, but distractions keep the Fact Checker from clarifying her comment. Then Sylvia disappears. He spends weeks looking for both Sylvia and the nefarious activities at the market, to no avail. He eventually visits the farm where Sylvia worked, thinking she has been killed by the owner. His search gets increasingly bizarre, taking him to little known corners of the city, making him question what he actually knows, along with questioning motivations, the social morals of New York City, and his place in the world. Kelley is a former fact checker for the New Yorker, providing excellent insider knowledge for this novel. VERDICT Kelley's debut it poignant, funny, and full of the quirky characters that make life interesting.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2025
Toiling at a weekly New York magazine in the early aughts, the Fact Checker gets a seemingly anodyne assignment about the Union Square Greenmarket, "portrayed as an ideal and an idyll." But a quote from farm-stand worker Sylvia gives him pause and ultimately sends him through a winding warren of uncertainty, which is anathema to the Fact Checker. He tracks Sylvia down, needing to know what she meant about "nefarious business" at the market. Then the two explore the city, places unknown even to the guy whose ex called him "Mr. Encyclopedia," and spend the night together before Sylvia disappears and the Fact Checker becomes a kind of PI. "All I was doing was tailing people, and I was clearly really bad at it." In his sort-of-mystery debut, with understated humor and zippy prose, former New Yorker fact-checker Kelley is a fluid and funny writer, divertingly digressing on the nature of fact-checking and filling out a backstory for the narrating Fact Checker, who, both well-informed and hilariously unaware, is as charmingly pedantic as a character could be.

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